What Can Be Passed Down

How one North Carolina family fights the U.S. land policy that robs Black descendants of their inheritance—and their autonomy.

My grandfather in particular guided me to be proud as a sixth-generation Black landowner and to be vigilant of all who want to ensure I’m the last generation to make such a claim. In the twenty-first century, Black Americans own less than 1 percent of U.S. farmland. This alarming statistic is part of a larger, intergenerational legacy of land theft, and I know from conversations with my grandparents that our job is to remember and tap into our ancestral legacy of resilience. To never let go of what those before me had fought so hard for.